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← Nigeria Hall of Fame

Literature & Ideas

Nigeria’s hall of fame in Literature & Ideas, arranged by level. Every entry carries the sources it was written from.

Peerless

Changed the field itself. Tell the country's story without them and the story breaks.

Wole Soyinka born 1934

The first African to win the Nobel Prize in Literature

Peerless
Chinua Achebe 1930 – 2013

Author of Things Fall Apart

Peerless
Ken Saro-Wiwa 1941 – 1995

Led the Ogoni against the oil companies, and was hanged for it

Peerless

Landmark

A first that opened a door, or the pre-eminent figure of their generation in this country.

Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie born 1977

Half of a Yellow Sun, Americanah, and We Should All Be Feminists

Landmark
Ben Okri born 1959

Booker Prize for The Famished Road

Landmark
Amos Tutuola 1920 – 1997

The Palm-Wine Drinkard, the first widely read African novel in English

Landmark
Flora Nwapa 1931 – 1993

The first African woman to publish a novel internationally in English

Landmark
Christopher Okigbo 1932 – 1967

The most anthologised African poet of his generation

Landmark
J. P. Clark 1935 – 2020

Poet and dramatist of the first Nigerian generation

Landmark
Zulu Sofola 1935 – 1995

Nigeria's first published woman playwright, and Africa's first woman professor of theatre arts

Landmark
Gabriel Okara 1921 – 2019

The first modernist poet of anglophone Africa

Landmark

Distinguished

Sustained excellence over a career, widely honoured at home.

Buchi Emecheta 1944 – 2017

Novelist of women's lives, appointed OBE

Distinguished
Cyprian Ekwensi 1921 – 2007

Jagua Nana and People of the City

Distinguished
Elechi Amadi 1934 – 2016

The Concubine, and the village trilogy

Distinguished

Know someone who belongs here?

This is an editorial selection, and it is certainly incomplete. Tell us who is missing from Nigeria and why — an editor reads every suggestion.

This is an editorial selection, not an official register. If you think someone is missing or something is wrong, let us know.